Mobile ticket purchases to rocket

To more than double to 23 billion annually by 2020, thanks to transport sector

Nearly 23 billion transport and events tickets will be purchased globally using mobile handsets by 2020, more than two times the volume expected this year, a new study has shown.

With a number of transport agencies enhancing app capabilities and integrating new payment services such as Apple Pay, the past 12 months have witnessed an increase in mobile ticketing users using apps for payments, as well as ticket delivery and validation, stated Juniper Research, which carried out the study.

The new research found that on a global basis, airline app ticketing is the most established in terms of deployment and user adoption, followed by events ticketing.

In 2015, Juniper found that the airline industry saw the highest year on year growth, representing a 50% increase in app-based ticketing users. Indeed, according to the latest data from SITA, mobile is becoming the favoured platform amongst passengers, with bookings made using an app expected to grow nearly 40% in 2016.

Research author Nitin Bhas added: “While app-based ticketing user adoption continues to be strong across a range of ticketing markets, sales volume growth will be driven by low-value metro and bus ticket purchases, most notably in the US market.”

However the research argued that for ticketing app usage to expand further, it needs to incorporate additional services, such as location based services, and offer a content rich experience from start to finish and beyond, ie from discovery to delivery, validation and future engagement.

The research also found that ticketing stakeholders are now realising the potential for using beacons to validate tickets as and when users walk through a gated environment with trials occurring in selected train stations. For example, in the UK, FutureRailway, a collaboration between the Rail Safety & Standards Board (RSSB) and Network Rail, awarded a contract to Bytemark for developing a Bluetooth low energy (BLE)-enabled mobile ticketing app.

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Smart Chimps is the creation of freelance editor, writer and media trainer, Heather McLean. Heather has been involved in telecoms journalism since 2001, specialising in mobile since 2002. Find out more